Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Amazon.com Targets Comedy, Children's Series

Amazon.com announced Wednesday that its Amazon Studio arm is looking to bolster content for its Amazon Instant Video service, and is encouraging writers, animators, and filmmakers to submit proposals for comedic and children's series. Amazon said it intends to option one new project a month, and if the firm decides to make it into a full-budget series, will pay $55,000, plus 5 percent of Amazon's net receipts from toy and t-shirt licensing, as well as other royalties to the creator. Amazon said it will extend an option for $10,000 after reviewing five page descriptions, 22-minute pilot scripts for comedies, or 11-minute pilot scripts for children's shows. Amazon said that so far it has seen more than 700 test movies and 7,000 scripts since launching Amazon Studios in November of 2010, and that it has 15 movie project under development.